Has "Indie" ruined gaming?

[Deuteros]

There's certainly an oversaturation of particular genres (platformers, physics-based puzzle games), aesthetics (faux-retro pixel art) or design philosophies (absurd, NES-like difficulty) that gives the indie scene a whiff of staleness. At least point-and-click adventures and turn-based RPGs also had a renaissance thanks to the indie 'bubble'.

I don't think the loss of what used to be the B-tier games most of us cherished so much can be pinned to indie games. It's just a matter of the more traditional forces in the industry wanting to maximize their investment at the expense of originality.

Crowdfunding flipped the whole concept of 'indie' on its head, actually. As of 15/September, Star Citizen has raised an eye-watering $53.502.914 in funding. Indie is increasingly becoming synonymous with 'independence from publisher's interference' and not so much 'this game was made by a team of two guys living on ramen noodles for a year'.

[Mr M0by]

Indie's have replaced the B tier games, which have become a few set niches that sell enough to make another like PES, dynasty warriors and EDF. On the ps4 side for me its all been pretty dull over the last year, I wouldn't call I single one of the new indie games out better then a 5/10 effort, most looking like ****ty phone port games, with lazy art and animation I've seen done better on a amiga500.

Olliolli, Luftrausers, Stick it to the Man, Contrast, Velocity 2X, TxK, Spelunky, Lone Survivor, Joe Danger, OctoDad: Dadliest Catch, Sports Friends, SteamWorld Dig, Fez, Proteus, PixelJunk Shooter, Towerfall Ascension, Transistor & Don't Starve are the majority of indies I've spent a fair amount of time on this year (especially the latter two) and out of all of them probably only Contrast, Proteus & maybe OctoDad would I rate less than 7/10.

Indies haven't ruined gaming for me.
However...PS+ has ruined me for indie games.

Won't buy another again as they all turn up free....or massively discounted in no time.

Maybe I've been fortunate then. I think only Sports Friends, TxK & Lone Survivor from that list have I bought and were subsequently given away with PSN Plus which was fair enough as I got a decent amount of use in the 4 months or so beforehand for SF and 5 or 6 for TxK & LS. There was also Spelunky on the Vita earlier in the year (for about ?2.69) and that's an October plus title but all of that's easily counter balanced by the amount of titles I've been willing to pay at launch but where free instead! If I was buying 'Indies' on day one and they were regularly being reduced weeks later then I might feel aggrieved admittedly. That's not happening though. So for me if there's an Indie title I want upon release, I'll buy it that week, if I don't then I make a conscious decision to wait until Plus or it's reduced (to what I'm happy to pay), whichever comes first.

[Guts]

There's certainly an oversaturation of particular genres (platformers, physics-based puzzle games), aesthetics (faux-retro pixel art) or design philosophies (absurd, NES-like difficulty) that gives the indie scene a whiff of staleness. At least point-and-click adventures and turn-based RPGs also had a renaissance thanks to the indie 'bubble'.

I don't think the loss of what used to be the B-tier games most of us cherished so much can be pinned to indie games. It's just a matter of the more traditional forces in the industry wanting to maximize their investment at the expense of originality.

Crowdfunding flipped the whole concept of 'indie' on its head, actually. As of 15/September, Star Citizen has raised an eye-watering $53.502.914 in funding. Indie is increasingly becoming synonymous with 'independence from publisher's interference' and not so much 'this game was made by a team of two guys living on ramen noodles for a year'.

Totally agree, although I think that the Star Citz developers are going to take the money and f****** run. They will NEVER make a 50 million dollar game, good for them but LOL @ anyone who thinks they'll spend 50 million in development of the game.

[Asura]

I can see the logic of the thread, even though I don't think the issue is quite so stark.

I think this is why most of us remember the Dreamcast with such a sense of nostalgia - their main, "AAA" games equivalents were made for type of gamer that comes to Bordersdown, which is the type of gamer that is mainly served by indie stuff today - see for example "90s Arcade Racer".

[Brad]

It's the big publishers that brought this about I reckon. Always aiming for massive sales and letting developers go when they don't see gta like sales figures, churning out crap sequels. Developers surely lose incentive and decide to go it alone. Games programmers work harder, have longer hours and get paid less than other industries that could use their skills. There has to be some benefit to doing it and if job satisfaction isn't there then why bother?

[JU!]

I have recently enjoyed Olliolli, Rogue Legacy, Luftrausers, Fez, PixelJunk Shooter, Transistor and Don't Starve. Also looking forward to NiddHog and Gang Beasts. Not a hero looks great too as indie titles go. But do agree there is perhaps too many as indie games can be so quick to make. For me the key is hearing about the best ones.

I personally think mobile games are worse for over saturation than indie games. A Blend of AAA and Indie this is best plus some good mobile stuff on the side like some of the Sega classics aka Streets Of Rage, Sonic CD, plus FTL and Hit Man Go and The Room etc. I'm probably not the first person who would live to see some mobile Nintendo classics also.

[kryss]

I think HumbleBundles have killed indie games for me. For example, I've been waiting on a discount on Wooden Sen'sey on the WiiU before getting it, then lo and behold, it's in a bundle this week with another 4-6 games with a $6 minimum. Spoilt, completely spoilt. I'm still going to wait and stick with the WiiU version though I think.

The purchase of a New3DS from Japan has brought with it a promise to myself not to get any more bundles this year*.





*though I may be giving steam codes away for some of the games I've managed to duplicate.

[BaronSqwelch]

Olliolli, Luftrausers, Stick it to the Man, Contrast, Velocity 2X, TxK, Spelunky, Lone Survivor, Joe Danger, OctoDad: Dadliest Catch, Sports Friends, SteamWorld Dig, Fez, Proteus, PixelJunk Shooter, Towerfall Ascension, Transistor & Don't Starve are the majority of indies I've spent a fair amount of time on this year (especially the latter two) and out of all of them probably only Contrast, Proteus & maybe OctoDad would I rate less than 7/10.



Maybe I've been fortunate then. I think only Sports Friends, TxK & Lone Survivor from that list have I bought and were subsequently given away with PSN Plus which was fair enough as I got a decent amount of use in the 4 months or so beforehand for SF and 5 or 6 for TxK & LS. There was also Spelunky on the Vita earlier in the year (for about ?2.69) and that's an October plus title but all of that's easily counter balanced by the amount of titles I've been willing to pay at launch but where free instead! If I was buying 'Indies' on day one and they were regularly being reduced weeks later then I might feel aggrieved admittedly. That's not happening though. So for me if there's an Indie title I want upon release, I'll buy it that week, if I don't then I make a conscious decision to wait until Plus or it's reduced (to what I'm happy to pay), whichever comes first.

Oh its not that I have bought them and then they have been free...its that anything that looks decent ends up being free, so no need to buy them. If it isnt free at first, anything else that looks more of a risk is in a sale (inc a + discount) in no time at all.

[DeathAdder]

I like buying physical games, so I don't really like the fact that the Vita's lack of first party games is widely excused because of the many indie games available for it.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that they are ruining gaming.

[Paddy]

They have certainly risen again in the gaming world but they are not on the way to ruining the industry as a whole. Platforms like Steam, PSN, Xbox LIVE and the Nintendo E-shop have given a warm environment for indie devs to push their wares out to customers but as the majority of forumites already do on here, avoid the guff and give time to the titles of interest/those with good word of mouth.

Yes indie as a part of the industry does feel like a bandwagon the major console manufacturers and some of the publishers are riding atm but if in every ten indie titles we get a Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Brothers or Rogue Legacy then let the development flow.

[JammyD]

Indie games are pretty much 95% 2D Platformers and I love those, in the beginning I bought and enjoyed a lot of indie ones yet increasingly they are/appear to be pants.

It is easy to point to "No Man's Sky" or The Astronauts as a developer but neither of those have actually released yet, we've seen so many even publisher backed games with overly ambitious devs or that end up stuck in development for generations and then release broken (look at Fez and that's nowhere near as complex as these games).

I think you've answered your own question here. Despite middleware, quality 3D content is still bloody hard to produce, especially when it comes to things like collision detection, event scripting and AI, but in 2D these things are well within reach.

Despite that, there are some REALLY big questions here:
Why has no one attempted a commercial N64 Zelda type game, a 90s Tomb Raider style game, or an arcade (Quake/Goldeneye style) FPS? Point being that you can scale back production values to at least the PS2 era to reduce the barrier to development. There's an argument to made that the existence of level editors for Tomb Raider and PC FPSs took care of some of that demand, yet we have TWO ICO clones on the horizon (both of which I'm looking forward to, btw).